Something I learned while facilitating a three-day event for a 30-member team from various continents was that the impacts of a change programme can be slow to manifest. In itself that’s not an issue - unless your objectives include instant results. Still, there’s plenty you can do in the meantime to ensure that the results turn out favourably. You can do a great deal to re-assure yourself, your clients, your funders, that you are on the right tracks. It’s called 'positioning for impact'.

Start, for example, by building up the number of followers who you want to experience the important changes. You can find ways to get closer to these audiences by attending their events, joining their Facebook groups and going to their cocktail parties or race meetings.You are then well placed to get the right people anticipating your message. We’re all familiar with movie trailers. Here you are creating trailers of your own, forerunners of the changes to come. You can check how many people are looking at them and what their response is. If you look for early results that are finding favour, start talking about them and prompting conversations about them in these groups.​

​Even if you are not entirely sure what your part was in making these useful signs occur, you can speculate about how what you did (and what you have in mind further along the line in the change programme) may have had something to do with it. Accept the early indicators as positive evidence of the change. Indicators are nuggets on which you can pin the label ‘these are how I know it’s happening’.

There’s huge value in success stories that you and others select to share. They create inspiration by showing that results are possible, and by suggesting tips and strategies that everyone can adopt to support the change.